Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website Rosalind Adams, Alex Marshall, Christopher Godwin & Janet Dale in the world premiere (1973). Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Alex Marshall, Christopher Godwin & Rosalind Adams in the world premiere of Make Yourself At Home (1973). Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Alex Marshall, Ronald Herdman, Christopher Godwin & Rosaling Adams in the world premiere of Fancy Meeting You (1973). Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Ronald Herdman, Stanley Page & Christopher Godwin in the world premiere of Round And Round The Garden (1973). Copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust Tom Courtenay and Penelope Wilton in the London premiere of Table Manners at Greenwich Theatre (1974). Copyright: Stephen Moreton Prichard Penelope Keith, Felicity Kendal, Michael Gambon & Mark Kingston in the London premiere of Living Together at Greenwich Theatre (1974). Copyright: Stephen Moreton Prichard Michael Gambon and Felicity Kendal in the West End transfer of Round And Round The Garden at The Globe Theatre (1974). Copyright: Christopher Davies Tom Conti as Norman in the 1977 television adaptation.

Copyright: ITV Stephen Mangan as Norman in the Old Vic's London revival (2008). Copyright: Manuel Harlan Jessica Hynes as Annie in the Old Vic's London revival (2008). Copyright: Manuel Harlan A scene from Table Manners in the Old Vic's London revival of Table Manners (2008). Copyright: Manuel Harlan All images are copyright of the respective photographer / organisation and should not be reproduced without permission of the copyright holder. The Norman Conquests: Background Arguably the most famous of Alan Ayckbourn’s plays and certainly amongst the most successful, The Norman Conquests are an early landmark in Alan Ayckbourn’s writing career. Yet for something that is regarded as a milestone in 20th century British theatre, the plays had a surprisingly pedestrian origin. In September 1972, in the aftermath of the success of Absurd Person Singular at the Library Theatre , Scarborough, a reporter for a local newspaper (the precise publication being lost to time) asked Alan what he planned to write next.

Rather flippantly Alan replied he was thinking of writing a trilogy as apparently he couldn’t think of anything else to say; he did not mention this plan to any other publication and an end of season report in The Stage quotes Alan as saying he would write a new play - no mention of a trilogy - for the following summer. Alan thought nothing more of it until the unidentified newspaper in question ran a story in March 1973, while he was away in London, stating his next project would be a trilogy. A panicked call from the Library Theatre - totally unaware of this development - enquired whether this was true. After a brief consideration, Alan decided it wasn’t such a bad idea and began writing his first trilogy. In a sense, the inspiration for The Norman Conquests was not only the challenge it posed to write and direct a trilogy, but also to provide a success and a challenge for the Scarborough company which would also satisfy all audiences whether they came to see one, two or three plays.

The reality of writing a trilogy was even more complex than it first appeared as paramount in Alan’s mind was not only writing three plays which worked together, but that were - in essence - independent of each other and that could be seen in any order and not necessarily with either of the other two plays. Alan was well aware the plays would dominate the Library Theatre’s summer season and that the theatre relied on tourists who might not necessarily be inclined to spend three nights of their holiday at the theatre and who might be put off by the thought of seeing a trilogy. As a result, the trilogy nature of the plays was not emphasised nor that ultimate satisfaction required seeing all three productions. This is most obvious in the fact the trilogy did not have an over-arching name for the original production. The title of The Norman Conquests would come later in London, in the meantime the only overt reference to the trilogy was the note: “A weekend view of the Norman Conquest” carried in each programme alongside a programme note by Alan simply explaining the concept of the trilogy. The plays were written simultaneously over a week in May 1973 with Alan writing each play cross-wise (i.e. all the scenes ones after each other, than all of the scenes twos etc).

Despite this method of working, Alan firmly believes each play has its own very distinct character: Table Manners is the funniest; Round And Round The Garden the more casual and conventional; Living Together a slower piece with a deliberate slackening of the pace. As to why Norman appears so late in Table Manners (the first of the plays to be rehearsed), this is simply because the actor playing Norman, Christopher Godwin, was unavailable for the first week of rehearsals and the script was written to accommodate this. The plays - at this point called: Fancy Meeting You, Make Yourself At Home and Round And Round The Garden - opened in the summer of 1973 at the Library Theatre and - once people had realised what was happening - were an enormous success. The local press reported the plays were selling out at every performance and The Stage announced the play had broken every box office record at the Library Theatre. The plays are also fondly recalled at the theatre for the extraordinary occasion when a member of the audience laughed so hard she spat her false teeth out, which her husband came to recover from the box office the next day!

Although the plays were a huge success in Scarborough, a transfer to the West End was by no means inevitable - nor, extraordinary as it seems now, was any sort of future guaranteed for the plays. Alan was of the opinion that it was probably not viable to take a trilogy to London (or anywhere else!) and had also been forewarned by his agent Margaret Ramsay (better known as Peggy) and various producers that a trilogy was box office death and it was unlikely anyone would realistically want to pick it up; as Alan subsequently noted, what this assumption was based on given the lack of theatrical trilogies in general is anyone's guess. Several producers did tussle with the challenge of transferring the plays to London - albeit singularly rather than as a trilogy - but each favoured a different play; this did suggest to Alan all three plays were viable if even West End producers couldn't agree which one was the best. Near the end of the original run in Scarborough, Alan's current London producer Michael Codron reluctantly agreed to produce all three plays in London. Jubilation quickly turned to disappointment when several weeks later, he withdrew the offer having had second thoughts and deemed it too much of a financial risk.

Obviously disappointed, Alan put the trilogy in a drawer and began work on his next play Absent Friends . At which point, it should be stressed Alan genuinely believed there was probably no future for the plays and they were unlikely to ever be picked up again. Historically, several Ayckbourn plays have been 'put in the drawer' and then either never been produced again, withdrawn or only been picked up again following extensive revisions. It is both the playwright and his wife's contention that The Norman Conquests would probably have been forgotten and never picked up again, had they not been contacted by Eric Thompson, who had previously directed the West productions of Time And Time Again and Absurd Person Singular. Eric was going into hospital and wondered whether Alan had anything for him to read, so Alan sent him a bit of light reading in the form of The Norman Conquests. Eric read them and was very enthusiastic; believing Greenwich Theatre might be a viable venue and suggesting Tom Courtenay - who had starred in Time And Time Again - might be interested in the trilogy.

His suggestion the trilogy be mounted at a fringe venue offered less financial risk as well as a testing ground, where if the plays were demonstrated to be both viable and successful, it would be easier to sell a West End transfer. Greenwich Theatre agreed to stage the plays and Eric’s choice of an exceptionally strong cast of relative unknowns (including Michael Gambon, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Wilton and Penelope Keith) working alongside the more established Tom Courtenay arguably helped to guarantee the plays’ future and success in London. Not that Eric was totally convinced he had a hit on his hands as Alan Ayckbourn recalls of a conversation on the first premiere of the plays: "Eric said, 'Do you realise we could be the first people in history with three flops in a row, because if they don't like one, they sure as hell aren't going to like the others!"' Fortunately for all concerned, the opposite occurred. To expedite the prolonged rehearsal and help with the casting, Peggy meanwhile contacted Michael Codron - who was aware of the Greenwich plans. A deal was struck that Codron would underwrite the cost of rehearsals in return for first refusal on any West End transfer.

In a shrewd move for all concerned, the deal was struck and Codron's involvement kept quiet. Rehearsals began in London and, unusually, Alan became a participant in the production at Greenwich and was actively involved in rehearsals; Eric would direct the brunt of the play, but when it came to the set-pieces such as the dinner party in Table Manners, he would invite Alan to step in, who would block the scene and direct the basics before Eric took over again. This participation was only made public in a BBC documentary in 2011 and it could be argued The Norman Conquests rather than Bedroom Farce marked Alan's directorial debut in London (despite this, Bedroom Farce is still officially regarded as London directing debut). As for the plays themselves, there was little alteration to the texts between Scarborough and London, but there were several other notable changes. The trilogy now became known as The Norman Conquests as a means of emphasising to the audience they should see all three plays - although in no particular order. Two of the original titles were also altered: Fancy Meeting You became Table Manners; Make Yourself At Home became Living Together, leaving only Round And Round The Garden unaltered.

The Norman Conquests played at Greenwich from May to June, 1974, and was an incredible and immediate success. Such was the overwhelming response to the trilogy that it was reported at the time there was a rush from West End producers to take on the plays with one article citing the producer Michael Codron had to apparently pay a vastly inflated price to secure the rights as a result of this. This was journalistic invention, though, as Codron had been a silent partner throughout the Greenwich experience. His involvement had been kept quiet as it was felt if the management of Greenwich Theatre realised he had helped fund the trilogy - implying the transfer to the West End was practically a given - there would be scope for the theatre to make more financial demands. As a result, Codron's role in the Greenwich success was played down and he only stepped into the limelight when the transfer was officially confirmed, giving the impression he had only just become involved with it. Codron took the trilogy into the West End with virtually the same cast - Bridget Turner taking over from the unavailable Penelope Wilton - and it opened at the Globe Theatre on 1 August, 1974.

The response to the transfer was just as enthusiastic as it had been at Greenwich and The Norman Conquests would win the Evening Standard and the Plays And Players Awards for Best New Play, as well as winning Felicity Kendal the Variety Club’s Most Promising Newcomer Award. The plays would run until 13 March 1976. The long-running success included a transfer from the Globe Theatre to the Apollo Theatre in December 1975 and when the play was recast in 1975, it included Julia McKenzie in her first Ayckbourn role. Alan would later cite her performance as one of the reasons why he felt she was capable of taking on the demands of the role of Susan in the 1986 West End production of Woman In Mind . An American production was practically a given, such was the success of the trilogy in London and the response Alan’s previous play Absurd Person Singular had already received on Broadway. The rights to the plays were bought by Philip Langer who initially suggested the London cast transfer to Broadway, but this foundered when Tom Courtenay was not prepared to commit for more than a 12 week season, which financially was not attractive to the American producers.

The search for a suitable American cast did see one of the more unusual suggestions for an Ayckbourn play when the acclaimed actor Dustin Hoffman showed interest in the plays. He visited London to see the trilogy and in an interview said he was actively considering the plays. Unfortunately this did not come to pass and the thought of Dustin Hoffman as Norman can only be left to the imagination. Eric Thompson, who had directed the American production of Absurd Person Singular to great acclaim, returned to direct the American production which began life with a short run in Los Angeles before transferring to New York. The trilogy was well received but did not achieve the same level of success as Absurd Person Singular. It ran at the Morosco Theatre from 5 December 1975 to 19 June 1976, winning the 1976 Drama Desk award for Unique Theatrical Experience. With the trilogy running in concert with Absurd Person Singular, Alan’s achievement at having the most plays running simultaneously on Broadway was marked when 45th Street was renamed Ayckbourn Alley for the day in March 1976.

This achievement was mirrored in London when Absent Friends opened in 1975 and Alan had five plays running simultaneously in the West End (Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests and Absent Friends). The American production would be the final collaboration between Alan and Eric Thompson (begun when Eric directed the London premiere of Time And Time Again in 1972). Back in England, the trilogy was set to become the first of Alan’s plays to enjoy multi-media success. Prior to 1974, his plays had been published by Samuel French as play texts aimed predominantly at the amateur performance market. No-one had shown interest publishing them for a wider audience despite prior attempts to interest a major publisher in the plays. This all changed with The Norman Conquests when several publishers - including Faber & Faber and Methuen - made proposals to print the trilogy. The contract was awarded to Chatto & Windus, who published the trilogy in hardback in 1975; this news was even reported in the Daily Telegraph. Penguin would later buy the paperback rights from Chatto & Windus becoming the first mass market paperback publication of Alan’s plays.

The success of the plays also attracted interest from film and television companies, all keen to tackle the trilogy in some form or to spin it off in other directions. The BBC initially suggested making both an adaptation of the plays and a spin-off television series and other producers followed suit; although practically every suggestion was for a spin-off from the plays in the form of a one-off special or a half-hour television series. Alan himself was “mystified” as to why any of the characters should merit a spin-off, but was prepared to let Peggy handle the process and see what sort of offers came to the table. Concurrent to this, several film companies were suggesting making a movie of the trilogy, although the idea of just one film encompassing all three plays did not appeal to Alan. Strangely, there was very little suggestion of filming the trilogy as a trilogy and the first notable suggestion along these lines did not come until 1975 when the producer David Susskind offered to adapt the plays for television with the original West End cast and Alan’s original scripts.

Over the course of 1976, this project was hammered out with Verity Lambert, arguably one of the UK’s most famous and successful television producers, co-producing with Susskind for Thames Television. Throughout the negotiations, Alan and Peggy fought hard for the plays to be presented at their original lengths rather than cut down to fit a specific slot for television; a point which Alan has always felt strongly about when considering the television, film and radio adaptations of his work. Thames Television announced on 11 January, 1977, it was producing a trilogy of two-hour films based on the plays starring Tom Conti as Norman. This was the first time any TV channel in the UK had devoted six hours of prime-time television to a living playwright and the company’s faith in the films seemed well-placed with strong ratings for the broadcasts.

The three films, directed by Herbert Wise, were shown on consecutive Wednesdays from 8pm and just a week after the first one had been broadcast, Thames announced the films had been sold to PBS in the USA for a “six figure sum.” Despite their success, Alan was not entirely happy with the adaptations, although much of the blame for this was put on a strike which had taken place in the middle of filming and effected the quality of the production. Alan's mixed feelings about the television adaptation were not helped when in 1981, Table Manners was released on video in the UK. Neither Alan nor Peggy were aware of this until they saw a newspaper review (for the film buffs out there, Table Manners was released on video in the UK at the same time as Star Wars). Thames Television was contacted and had released the video despite not having contractual rights to do so; as a result a limited two year video release contract was arranged for the trilogy, however it is not apparent whether the all three films were ever actually released on video in the UK following this.

Whatever the case, the trilogy made very little impact on video in the UK and was not made available again until a DVD release in 2006 (later re-issued in 2014). In April 2015, the British Film Institute screened the trilogy in a single day as part of a festival celebrating the work of the television producer Verity Lambert. Following the conclusion of its successful London run in 1976, there was immense interest in the future of the trilogy with one of the first suggestions being a national tour originating with the Cambridge Theatre Company. Alan, however, was keen that the plays be released to repertory theatres as soon as possible where he saw a more natural home for them. No-one could actually see how a tour of The Norman Conquests would work anyway - significantly Michael Codron had already dismissed the idea unless each theatre on the tour committed to at least three-week long visits. With considerable demand from repertory theatres across the country, the trilogy was released for production in 1976 and the first regional production was staged by the recently opened Theatre Clywd, Mold, on 9 August 1976.

Other productions soon followed throughout the UK, cementing the trilogy as a popular draw and Alan’s burgeoning reputation as a playwright. In 1977, The Norman Conquests was apparently the most performed work in the country followed by Macbeth and Alan’s previous hit Absurd Person Singular. It was estimated that in 1977, 950,000 people saw the trilogy on stage in the UK alone. Amateur rights were released in 1978 and it remains one of the most produced of Alan Ayckbourn’s works. In 2013, the publishers Samuel French reported that combined productions of the three plays made The Norman Conquests the second most performed Ayckbourn play by amateurs since 1996 after Ernie's Incredible Illucinations. Although the television adaptation of the trilogy had been a huge hit, a more satisfying adaptation was created by the BBC for radio in 1990. Directed and adapted by Gordon House, the three part adaptation featured a strong cast, many of whom had previously worked extensively with Alan Ayckbourn.

Robin Herford, Diane Bull, Jon Strickland and Tessa Peake-Jones featured in what was a very popular adaptation of the trilogy which was released commercially in 1993 on cassette and is frequently repeated on BBC Radio to this day. In 2010, the BBC released it on CD and as a digital download for the first time as part of the launch of its Classic Radio Theatre series. In 2015, the BBC broadcast a new adaptation of the trilogy in BBC Radio 4, directed by Peter Kavanagh and featuring Helen Baxendale, Nigel Planer and Julian Rhind-Tutt in the cast. The significance of The Norman Conquests and its place in 20th century British theatre was highlighted in 1999 as part of the National Theatre’s NT2000 celebration. This named the trilogy as one of the 100 Plays Of The Century, where it represented 1973. A platform featuring the original Norman - Christopher Godwin - and Mark Kingston (Reg in the first London production) marked the event in June 1999.

Plans to revive The Norman Conquests in London had long been rumoured with the National Theatre at one point apparently considering a revival to mark the 20th anniversary of the trilogy in 1993. Although nothing came of this, in 2006 Kevin Spacey - Artistic Director of the Old Vic - made a surprise announcement that The Norman Conquests would be revived in London for the first time since 1974 with the acclaimed and award-winning Matthew Warchus directing. The production was confirmed in May 2008 with the unexpected news that the interior of the Old Vic would be adapted so The Norman Conquests could be performed in the round as originally produced and written by Alan Ayckbourn, marking the first time a major London production of an Ayckbourn play was performed in the round. The trilogy opened in September for a three month run featuring Stephen Mangan, Jessica Hynes, Paul Ritter, Amanda Root, Amelia Bullmore and Ben Miles. Despite the popularity of the plays, it was acknowledged that staging a trilogy in the West End - particularly given the country was in the early stages of recession - was nothing but a considerable risk. The result defied everyone’s expectations.

The reviews were uniformly ecstatic with all aspects of the production receiving praise including the risky decision to convert the Old Vic auditorium into the round. The critical notices and word of mouth meant the Old Vic soon had a huge success on its hands. The Times later named the production as one of the theatrical events of the decade. Almost immediately after the run ended, there were rumours The Norman Conquests would transfer to New York; although extended negotiations to transfer the original cast and to keep it in the round meant the trilogy did not reach New York until April 2009 for a limited run. The producer Sonia Friedman was responsible for the transfer to the Circle In The Square, where the trilogy was again performed in the round. Critical notices were again excellent but the trilogy proved a harder sell in America and despite doing strong business it would not recoup the initial investment (although there were negotiations to extend the run as audiences continued to build throughout the trilogy’s time on Broadway). Where The Norman Conquests did succeed, above and beyond any expectation, was in recognition of the production and the company. It received a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle and awards for Best Revivals from the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk.

The cast, both singularly and as a company also received a number of awards. The crowning moment came on 7 June when the trilogy received a prestigious Tony award for Best Revival. This was the first time an Ayckbourn play had won a Tony and it seems apt that his writing should be recognised on Broadway with a Tony for his most famous work in the 50th anniversary year of his playwriting career. Alan Ayckbourn never truly believed when he wrote The Norman Conquests that it would have a long shelf-life as, at the time, he couldn't see either professional or amateur companies producing a trilogy of plays with all the demands this entailed. Time has proved him very wrong and The Norman Conquests continues to be popular and regularly staged by both professional and amateurs around the world and has become one of the most popular and well-loved of all Alan Ayckbourn's plays. Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd. Please do not reproduce without permission of the copyright holder. All material © Simon Murgatroyd or Alan Ayckbourn except where noted. Portrait of Alan Ayckbourn by Andrew Higgins.

Contact Me The Battle for The Norman Conquests | Broadway Buzz | Broadway.com The Battle for The Norman Conquests Features By Smith Galtney April 9, 2009 - 6:11PM Tweet Perhaps the only things you know about the Broadway revival of The Norman Conquests are that 1 it’s an English comedy, 2 it’s really long and 3 it’s about pivotal event in England’s history. Yes, yes, and no. Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy classic could be the only epic trilogy capable of making you laugh hysterically for nine whole hours. And while it’s not about Normandy’s 1066 invasion of England, this story of a lascivious librarian, his five friends and one truly horrible weekend getaway is historic in its own way. Here’s the Backstory of why the creator of this 33-year-old comedy classic is both the Stephen King and Rodney Dangerfield of English theater and what New Yorkers will get from taking in his rarely produced trilogy in its entirety. Suburban Beginnings England’s most popular living playwright was born in Hampstead, a suburb of North London, on April 12, 1939.

His father, Horace Ayckbourn, was the lead violinist for the London Symphony Orchestra. His mother, Irene Maud Worley, wrote for women’s magazines and published short stories and novels under the pseudonym “Mary James.” Her son called her “Lolly.” “I spent a lot of my time in her company as a child and she would sit tapping away at her typewriter,” he said earlier this year in The Telegraph. “If she’d have been a baker, I would probably have started rolling out pastries.” For the record, Lolly and Horace were never married. When she left him shortly after World War II, she filed for divorce from her first husband in order to marry a rural bank manager named Cecil Pye in 1946. Alan’s new family included a stepbrother, Christopher, and “home” was now in rural Sussex. The Pye clan lived variously in Billingshurst, Wisborough, Horsham, Uckfield, Hayward’s Heath and Lewes. The marriage of Lolly and Cecil, bumpy from the start, only got rockier. “I was surrounded by relationships that weren’t altogether stable,” Alan later told The New York Times.

“The air was often blue, and things were sometimes flying across the kitchen table.” A boarding school boy, Alan wrote his first play at Wisborough Lodge prep school when he was 10. At 12, he earned a scholarship to attend Haileybury, one of England’s leading co-ed schools that counts Rudyard Kipling and Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan among its alumni. He toured the Netherlands in a school production of Romeo and Juliet, and in 1956, toured the U.S. and Canada in Macbeth. At 17, convinced it was time to pursue a career in theater, Ayckbourn left Haileybury early and immediately got a three-week job with the company of soon-to-be-knighted thespian Donald Wolfit. In 1957, he became an actor/stage manager at the Library Theatre in Scarborough, the U.K.’s first professional theater in the round. Artistic director Stephen Joseph challenged the young actor to write and direct, and Ayckbourn’s debut play, The Square Cat, opened in the spring of 1959.

The theater-in-the-round setup would become an integral element in Ayckbourn’s work, and to this day, Scarborough remains home. “I remember I got off the train packed with holidaymakers and this bracing air and smell of chips,” he later wrote in The Times of London. “Because I was an inland child living in north Sussex, one of the great treats as a child was a trip to the seaside— so, dear reader, I bought the sweet shop. I came to the seaside and stayed. I thought, ‘This can’t get better.’” Mr. A’s Amazing Maze Plays From here on, the ultra-prolific career of Alan Ayckbourn becomes difficult to encapsulate. Capping off his acting career in 1964, he became an acclaimed director Arthur Miller proclaimed his staging of A View from the Bridge as definitive, served as artistic director for a number of English theaters including the National, collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber 1975’s Jeeves, produced radio drama for the BBC, taught at Oxford as the Cameron Mackintosh Professor of Contemporary Theatre and earned his own knighthood in 1997 for his services to the theater.

Then there’s his written work: At present, Ayckbourn has completed 72 full-length plays, plus more than 20 revues and plays for children. The Telegraph went so far as to anoint him “the most successful-in-his-lifetime playwright there has ever been, including Shakespeare.” Neil Simon, the American playwright most frequently compared with Ayckbourn, might disagree with that assessment. His many hits include Absurd Person Singular, Bedroom Farce, Absent Friends, Woman in Mind and, of course, The Norman Conquests. Built like an epic yet defined as a farce, The Norman Conquests consists of three separate, unified yet independent plays: Living Together, Table Manners and Round and Round the Garden. Each involves six friends and one very complicated weekend in a country house, and each tells the same story within the same time frame, yet from a different area of the house dining room, living room, garden. An exit in one play is an entrance in another, as the conceit goes, and while Ayckbourn designed the trilogy so that each play can be enjoyed individually and in any order, his cleverness is irrefutable when it’s viewed as a whole.

Watching all the pieces connect feels like solving a Rubik’s Cube—if solving a Rubik’s Cube made one laugh out loud for nine hours. In typical Ayckbourn fashion, the synopsis for The Norman Conquests doesn’t look like much on paper. Here’s how the playwright summarizes Living Together on his website: “The events of one weekend as seen from the Sitting Room. In which Reg is driven mad by Tom... Tom tells Annie a thing or two... Annie nearly comes to blows with Sarah... Sarah sees a different side of Norman... Norman sorts things out with Ruth... Ruth discovers the charms of a fireside rug... and in which nobody enjoys playing board games.” If that makes your average episode of Seinfeld seem like a plot-driven mystery, allow us to elaborate: Norman is a not-very-quiet assistant librarian who’s plagued by bad luck and worse judgment. After failing to seduce his sister-in-law, he heals his wounds by making a play at his other sister-in-law. As hijinks ensue and the audience feels relief this isn’t their country house, Ayckbourn sneaks in many moments that are less ha-ha funny and more about hard truths.

“When I started out, there were serious plays where the lighting was desperately dark and the tempo turgid, and comic plays where madness prevailed and everyone talked like Dick Van Dyke on speed.” Ayckbourn told The Guardian in 1992. “What I’ve tried to do is bring these elements together, which is a bit like dancing on the edge of a razor blade.” Man of the Moment Written in 1973, The Norman Conquests debuted on London’s West End the following year and became an enormous hit. On December 7, 1975, it opened on Broadway at the since-destroyed Morosco Theatre in a production starring Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, Estelle Parsons and Ken Howard. The trilogy played through June, receiving a warm review from New York Times critic Walter Kerr but no Tony Award nominations. In 1977, the plays were turned into a miniseries starring Tom Conti, nominated for an Emmy for Ayckbourn’s script. And what of Ayckbourn’s reputation?

Hugely famous in England but not so well known here, the playwright has been looked at in some quarters as the Stephen King of the theater: a commercially successful writer who specializes in a genre comedy that pundits love to snub. In 1999, The Independent reported that Ayckbourn’s work had inspired only two American and one English doctoral theses, and that the writer of the English thesis was told by his professor, “If only Ayckbourn were dead, it would be easier to rate him.” As the playwright himself has cracked, “Most young writers would say they were influenced by Scrobadov, a rare Polish playwright who wrote one play and drowned himself, rather than an Establishment figure like me.” An additional challenge: Ayckbourn designed his scripts to be performed at Scarborough’s in-the-round theater, and most playhouses around the world feature the more traditional proscenium-arch setup. So while his hit comedies earned a spot in the pantheon of perpetually revived plays, Ayckbourn kept a tight hold on The Norman Conquests, absent from both the West End and Broadway for more than three decades.

“He actually had withdrawn rights to most of his plays over the last five to ten years,” says Matthew Warchus, director of such Ayckbourn-esque comedies as Boeing-Boeing and God of Carnage. “He’s a very, very good director himself, so I think it’s complicated for him to see his plays taken in a slightly different way.” What Goes Around Comes Around One of the fans of the original Broadway production of The Norman Conquests was none of than two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. “I was 13 years old and a young drama student and fell in love with them as plays,” he says. Once he was appointed artistic director at the Old Vic, the legendary theater co-founded by Laurence Olivier, Spacey placed Ayckbourn’s trilogy at the top of his wish list, with Warchus as director. To get the playwright’s approval, he pledged a costly renovation of the historic theater.

“We were aiming to make people who’d been to the Old Vic feel like they’d never been there before, that they couldn’t believe what we’d done,” says Spacey—as if producing three plays in repertory, which required the highest level of commitment not only from actors but from the audience, too, wasn’t stress-inducing enough. “I have enormous faith in Matthew and enormous love and affection for the plays,” says Spacey. “But if it had not gone well, can you imagine? We had completely reconfigured the theater and it didn’t work!?!” It did, obviously. Critics rhapsodized over the theater’s makeover and fawned over the play. Audiences turned it into a commercial blockbuster. And Ayckbourn, who suffered a stroke in 2006 but quickly returned to work at his beloved theater in Scarborough, received a special Olivier Award from Spacey for lifetime achievement in early March. A Broadway transfer of the entire production wasn’t so complicated, since Circle in the Square could provide the in-the-round experience. “There’s something so daring and dangerous about actors having nowhere to hide and characters therefore having nowhere to hide,” says Spacey.

“There’s this kind of exposure.” Adds Warchus, “It immediately removes the trap of middle-class, middle-of-the-road theater. The wallpaper, the French windows, all the things that make a play look more conventional. Take those away, and you just have an island of clarity and agony.” Warchus doesn’t just call The Norman Conquests a highlight of his already-impressive career, but the highlight. “I realize it’s is a strange thing to do, to ask people to see three plays with the same characters in the same setting,” he says. “But there’s a promise in return. The people who do see these plays will remember them for the rest of their lives.” See for yourself now that Norman’s back in New York! Sir Alan Ayckbourn - Literature Literature Biography Sir Alan Ayckbourn was born in London in 1939, and has worked in theatre all his life. He has undertaken various roles including actor, writer and director, encouraged by his mentor Stephen Joseph, who founded the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.

Almost all of his plays written to date have been first performed at this theatre, of which he was Artistic Director until his retirement in 2009, and many subsequently produced in the West End or at the National Theatre. A prolific writer of comedy plays satirising middle-class manners, he is considered one of the world's pre-eminent dramatists. His first West End hit, Relatively Speaking (1968), opened in 1967, and major plays since have included Absurd Person Singular (1974); The Norman Conquests (1975); Bedroom Farce (1977); Just Between Ourselves (1978); A Chorus Of Disapproval (1985); Woman In Mind (1986); A Small Family Business (1987); Man Of The Moment (1990); Things We Do For Love (1998); Comic Potential (1999); Private Fears in Public Places (2004) and Roundelay (2014). He has won numerous awards for his plays, which have been translated into 35 languages, and are performed worldwide on stage and television.

Seven of his plays have been performed on Broadway. Sir Alan Ayckbourn also writes plays for children and young people. These include Mr. A's Amazing Maze Plays (1989), Invisible Friends (1991) and The Boy Who Fell Into A Book (2000). Gizmo (1999) was written for the British Telecom National Connections project, organised by the Royal National Theatre involving young people nationwide. Also an accomplished director of his own and other plays, works he has directed include A View From The Bridge, starring Michael Gambon, and the USA premiere of his and Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical, By Jeeves. Sir Alan Ayckbourn has received many honorary degrees, is Freeman of the Borough of Scarborough, was appointed CBE in 1987 and knighted for his services to theatre in 1997. His most recent play is Hero's Welcome (2015). Awards Critical perspective Alan Ayckbourn is a playwright of great prolificacy and facility.

In 1974, when his play Absent Friends joined Absurd Person Singular (1974), Table Manners (1975), Living Together (1975) and Round And Round The Garden (1975) in the West End, he held the record for the most plays running there simultaneously. Since then, a further 27 of his plays have been produced either in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, or off Broadway. ‘Such facility is bound to stir critical suspicion’ wrote the critic Eric Shorter (Daily Telegraph, 17 June 1975), but it is not only the quantity of his output that is so remarkable. He is a brilliant comic writer, ‘one of the most consistent … in the history of English letters’ (Robin Thornber, The Guardian, September 1980), who over the years has continued to address important subjects and stage plays in the most inventive ways. In Taking Steps (1981), for example, three floors of a house share the same level of the stage.

Things We Do For Love (1998) features three actual floors, though on one only ankles are visible, and on another only heads. Sisterly Feelings (1981) and Intimate Exchanges (1985)employ the device of alternative versions, while Way Upstream (1983) famously presents a real waterway and a moving boat capable of holding the entire cast. ‘Having worked in theatre, as a theatre person all my life, I do like to make use of the medium,’ he has said. The son of a violinist and a writer, who parted when he was still quite young, Ayckbourn joined Stephen Joseph’s ‘in the round’ company in Scarborough, in 1957, as an acting assistant stage manager. Joseph became a mentor and encouraged him to write, producing seven of his plays. His audiences at this time were largely ‘people who had had their holidays spoilt by rain’, a world away from the workshops and rehearsed readings of apprentice playwrights today. Ayckbourn’s breakthrough came with his seventh play, Relatively Speaking (1968).

A comedy of misunderstandings and a peculiarly English politeness, with dialogue of beautiful simplicity and acute observation, it opened to critical acclaim in the West End in 1967 and ran for a year. How The Other Half Loves (1971) was an even bigger success, three years later; its setting, comprising half each of two identical apartments, an early example of his theatrical cleverness. With Time and Time Again (1973), Ayckbourn began to dissect the fragility and unspoken sadness of the English middle-class home, ‘the everyday inhumanity of people to each other, especially within marriage and the family’ (Benedict Nightingale, An Introduction to 50 Modern British Plays, 1982). An underrated play, it features a sustained misunderstanding, two failed relationships, and a central character whose destructiveness arises from his passivity. All of these areas he has revisited, in particular the difficulties of relationships: ‘Mainly I want to say things about the fear and distrust people have for each other, the fact that men and women still don’t seem to understand each other very well’.

In Henceforward (1987) and Comic Potential (1999), plays set in the future, the only happy relationships are between man and robot. As Jerome in Henceforward puts it: ‘If human beings behaved a bit less like human beings and a bit more like machines, we’d all be better off.’ In 1973, Ayckbourn wrote a trilogy of plays, The Norman Conquests, which came to the West End the following year. In an extraordinary coup de theatre, he presented three plays with the same characters and the same events, each set in a different part of the home. In Norman, he created an enormously appealing antihero who was unafraid to kick against, even to demolish, the boundaries of polite society. With Just Between Ourselves (1978), his achievement was equally sure. This play, a comedy, charts a woman’s breakdown at the side of her utterly unaware husband. Vera spends the entire last act silent and motionless in her garden in winter, in a scene almost too painful to watch.

Ten years later, Ayckbourn returned to the subject in Woman in Mind (1986), creating a world in which the audience views every part of the action through the deteriorating mind of its protagonist, a despairing vicar’s wife. In the mid-'eighties, he wrote a series of plays, starting with A Chorus Of Disapproval (1985), which showed the consequences of the failure of relationships within society at large. In A Small Family Business (1987), for example, petty thieving leads, seemingly inexorably, to murder, and a character can say, quite plausibly: ‘If you’re going to be a criminal, you’ve got to have some sort of brain, haven’t you? I mean, any fool can be honest, can’t they?’ The theatre critic Michael Billington has written of Ayckbourn’s ‘limitless capacity for surprise… Instead of repeating old formulas, he is constantly taking off in new directions’ (Country Life, 7 June 1990).

Since then the playwright has written, amid a great deal else, two plays exploring time travel (Time Of My Life, 1993 and Communicating Doors, 1995); a ghost story (Haunting Julia, in Plays 3, 2005); musicals; more than a dozen children’s plays; and two plays (House and Garden, both 2000) performed by the same cast playing the same characters in two auditoria simultaneously. He also wrote a play with 54 short scenes (Private Fears In Public Places, in Plays 3, 2005), which in 2005 became a cult hit off Broadway. Ayckbourn has won more than 40 awards, and was knighted in 1997. Despite everything he has achieved, he may be forgiven for feeling that, because he has chosen to write comedies, his talents are still underrated. ‘We’re an odd nation,’ he wrote once. ‘Secretly I suspect we don’t really believe we’re seeing anything worthwhile unless we’ve had a really miserable time.’ Or, as Chandler Tate says in Comic Potential : ‘Tragedy?

You can get that in the street being run over. If it makes you laugh, treasure it.’ Alan Ayckbourn's Official Website Articles / Research The Norman Conquests: Character Notes by Alan Ayckbourn This is a guide to the characters of The Norman Conquests as written by Alan Ayckbourn for his casting director for the 1993 revival of The Norman Conquests at the Stephen Joseph Theatre In The Round, Scarborough. Annie Not so much a meek personality as what one might term an 'anything-for-a-quiet-life' personality. Her anxiety to see least trouble often leads her to be taken advantage of by the others. 'Easier', she feels, 'To do something yourself than go through all the arguments and bickering required to persuade someone else to do it.' This attitude has led her to accept far too great a share of the family responsibilities, especially with regard to her mother. Ironically, she already sees herself as her own worst enemy and is well aware of what she is doing. Her low self esteem is something that instantly attracts Norman. But Annie is tougher than she looks. There is another dormant, tougher side to her altogether. Sarah I suspect a psychiatrist would find Sarah a deeply unhappy woman.

She is certainly shrouded in deep guilt about practically everything. This results in her assuming responsibility for the world and his mother. She foresees disasters that may never happen, finds a crisis (and even creates one) where there was none previously and invariably dramatises the tiniest incident. Maybe it is her instinctive sense of order that causes this. Her desire to see everything in its place and staying there. She must have been the saddest little girl. For ever scrubbing and polishing her dolls, scolding and reproaching them for failing to sit up straight or for falling off their chairs. All her tea parties must have ended in tears of frustration. Despite her apparent care for the world, she is extraordinarily self centred, somewhat vain, a bully, sexually repressed and not, alas, very bright. Ruth Although she'd never admit it, her attitude is not a million miles away from Annie's. Ruth has simply chosen a different path to achieve the same result. In her case, a couldn't care less, seemingly cool manner which she affects in order to keep the world at bay. It is no accident that she chooses to view the world out of focus. That way she hopes to keep it from impinging on her.

Yet there is another side to Ruth. She is actually a passionate woman and a very intelligent one - by far the brightest of them all. This has led her away from the safe relationships her head tells her would make sense towards the unconventional, the unstable - hers and Norman's. Although the two are chalk and cheese, of course they are opposites irresistibly attracted. Reg A bit of a contradiction is Reg. On the surface a bit of a man's man, gregarious, jokey, a mite vulgar, he's really just a little boy who's never really grown up. His and Sarah's relationship is far more mother and third child than husband and wife. And quite a loner. He's very happy with his own company and again is someone who's happy to settle for a quiet life. He's very fond of Annie but not it seems fond enough to do anything much about helping her. Once again his and Sarah's is a marriage which, whilst seemingly filled with turmoil, is probably one that suits them both. Reg's description of himself in Living Together is probably as accurate as anything. In between bouts of furious activity (he responds well to physical or practical emergencies) he is happy to sit for days staring at the wall.

Tom Not quite as slow witted as he seems, Tom's real problem is his inability to tune in or focus properly on others. He's either a beat behind (more usual) or occasionally even a beat ahead. Or somewhere else altogether. People, so far as Tom is concerned, are a total mystery, an unreadable book. Their behaviour is totally inexplicable. Rages, depressions, bouts of tears, bursts of unexplained laughter. It's not that he doesn't listen. Often he listens too hard. To no avail. The harder he listens the more he tries to please them, the greater they rant and rage. But you should see him with an injured horse. An almost perfect communion between man and beast. If this makes him seem rather sweet and charming, yes, he is. He's also essentially as selfish and self-interested as the day is long. Norman The wild card in the pack. Norman's strength, though even he fails to realise it some of the time, is that he's totally transparent. He makes no secret of his needs and desires. He's discovered the greatest male sexual secret, namely that the quickest way to a woman's heart (and body) is to ask her for it.

And to keep on asking her till she says yes. His 'yes' rate is extraordinarily high for someone with apparently such an unappetising profile and slightly dubious personal habits. How does he do it? other better groomed men ask in bewilderment. But then Norman is unafraid and rarely offended by a refusal. Indeed, he could probably have been the Don Juan he professes to want to be. But the thrill of the chase is all for Norman. Invariably, at the kill, he will back off or lose interest. Enough for him to know that the unattainable was within his grasp rather than spoil the romantic dream by taking it. It is this romance, this un-threatening harmlessness, this genuine love of women, all women, the ability to see them, every one, as charmed and beautiful beings, that attracts them to him. They know he manipulates, they are well aware he often schemes and lies, but when the end product of these machinations is a desire for them, themselves - what the hell. How often in life do you get the chance to be the irresistible object of someone's desire? It's good to have been there once, even with Norman.

Needless to say, the biggest single driving force in Norman's life is his need to be liked, if not loved, by everyone. Alan also wrote gave an insightful observation about the character of Norman in the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on 5 October 1975: Norman the character illustrates to me the game that often goes on between men and women when a man spends an incredible amount of time setting up an elaborate act for the woman's benefit. The woman sees through it, and likes him despite the act. But the man continues to think it's his act that's doing the trick. Norman is patently the most transparent man in he world. He's like someone I knew who was a total failure with a disastrous marriage, but a tremendous live-wire to meet socially. Delightful, but not for very long. Norman's the wild card among these English limbo people I carry with me from childhood: the lapsed middle-class. It's a rich comic area. In personal correspondence from March 1976, Alan also talks about the character of Norman: Norman does manage to spread a veneer of happiness. He's a charming person in smallish doses.

He won't change - certainly not over two days. He's too selfish and self-centred and any set-backs or disappointments he receives are merely going to bolster his own prejudices about 'other people'. Ruth, who spends most of her time deflating him in other people's eyes, although a victim of his charms, says more than a grain of truth about him, however exaggerated. Some further insight into the character of Ruth was offered in 2012: If you were to scrape the layers away Ruth is equally as vulnerable [as, for example, Kitty in Taking Steps] - she has simply managed to find ways to protect herself better. Her Achilles' heel, if one can call it that, is she loves Norman with her heart, although every fibre of her (highly) intelligent mind is screaming 'No! No! No! Don't fall for it.' More insights into Norman from personal correspondence in 2015: I agree Norman himself is a bit of enigma. But then many of the plays of mine around that period employ the (hardly original!) technique of introducing the wild card character (a cat) in amongst a conventional group (the pigeons).

See, for example, Absent Friends, Time And Time Again, etc. I think Norman's background is deliberately sketchy - I'm less interested in his genesis than his impact. Blame my mentor at the time, one Harold Pinter, who directed me early on when I was playing Stanley in his deliberately opaque The Birthday Party. I too was mystified as to where my character had come from or even, after the play had ended, where on earth he went. So I asked him. Harold looked at me for a second and then gave me the immortal note, "Mind your own fucking business." I sort of knew what he meant and, after over 40 years of directing, it's one I rather wish I'd had the courage to give at times! Copyright: Alan Ayckbourn. Please do not reproduce without permission of Alan Ayckbourn. All material © Simon Murgatroyd or Alan Ayckbourn except where noted. Portrait of Alan Ayckbourn by Andrew Higgins. Contact Me

Question: Who wrote the Norman Conquests?
Answer: ALAN AYCKBOURN